Hi MTPockets,
Thanks for explaining more of how you see 'rebirth'. I take it you're including the resurrection of our bodies as the final element of completion?
Can I ask you to say whether you really do disagree with Paul's statement in Rom 5:12? If you don't, please could you use the main part of his statement to interject your own amplification of it with what you've expressed in the preceding posts?
I have no difficulty seeing 'the power of Death' as a spiritual power separate from a fallen creature, partly because of the angel of death in Exodus. Death appears to be an entity on its own. But is this what Paul is saying? How does Paul's statement differ with mine, which Trekson quoted below?
Hi Trekson,
You don't believe that the old man is 'the sin', and therefore, you don't believe that our 'sin nature' was crucified with Christ in reality. As a result, you don't believe that you can receive the death of Christ to your 'sin nature' in reality.
Everything you say about sins, is based on a false separation between the old man (Paul's name for it.) which is, to you, very much alive, and, your ability to control the inclinations of.... the flesh and the mind of the flesh, perhaps?
I'm not quite sure how you apportion the 'powers at work' (Thx MTP) in you, but I'm not surprised you don't have victory. The patchiness you describe is inevitable - until you come into agreement with God about your 'old man' having been crucified with Christ.
I'm not saying that patchiness doesn't occur as we work through the subduing of our flesh in our experience, but I don't believe the flesh has any more power than we (perhaps unconsciously, or, habitually) give it; but then, that belief of mine is because I believe 'the sin' received a death-blow on the cross, which we can receive in us, in all its fulness. This is what Rom 6, particularly v 3, defines.
You have to understand 'planted' as 'grafted'. We are not a separate plant in some mystical burial ritual nearby to Christ in His death. We are grafted into His death with Him. In the same way as we are to be grafted into His resurrection life, as depicted through the True Vine (John 15:1), we are to let His death (His slaying of 'the sin' on our behalf) flow through us, slaying all before it, in us, that His resurrection life may take over.
Does this reply cover enough of what you wished to have clarified in Rom 5:12?
Hi! 'DragonFly'
I didn't engage your mention of Rom 5:12 earlier because I wasn't too sure if that's what you were asking about. But hopefully my explanation/opinion to 'Trekson' should suffice as a start.
Ummm, I am so all-konphused with this Forum. I tried to reply to Trekson's Comment/Question directly concerning Rom 5:12 and each time what I typed in a NEW reply to this Thread was somehow inserted inside the Comment I previously Posted to yourself. So, I had to send it to Trekson via PM until I can figure out how to Post twice here to the same Thread without the two Posts becoming one.
Anyways, here is what I sent Trekson via PM minutes ago:
Hi Dragonfly, Could you expand on this? "When Adam sinned, all of his offspring died in his loins. Our propensity to and capacity for sin are entirely predicated by that fact. Rom 5:12.. It seems to me that Rom. 5:12 is saying what I said.
Hi Dragonfly, Could you expand on this? "When Adam sinned, all of his offspring died in his loins. Our propensity to and capacity for sin are entirely predicated by that fact. Rom 5:12.. It seems to me that Rom. 5:12 is saying what I said.
Hi! 'Trekson'
I hope you don't think it rude of me to parachute into your discussion with 'DragonFly'. I jus' thought that I might be of some help, maybe.
Since you quoted Rom 5:12, you must have noticed the causal conjunction 'therefore' which connects the previous paragraph with the lines of this particular verse.
Paul draws a parallel between man's justification and the manner in which he became a sinner. Therefore, as justification and the glory which follows it came through one man, Jesus Christ, who died for us all when we were yet sinners, so in much the same way sin has come into the world, and death through sin. As justification spread to all who accept the sacrifice of Jesus, so sin has spread to all who have sinned to their own destruction.
So here Paul is dealing with evil works which all have done, the Jew as well as the Gentile, and not with the doctrine of original sin. Jesus has died for the sins of the whole world, but only those who receive Him will be saved.
Sin entered the universe through Adam. When he obeyed the Evil One, he became a slave and surrendered his kingship to the devil. Thus having become the ruler of this world, Satan and his followers, the lawless powers of falsehood, sin and sickness, now came to occupy the earth. In this way the universe entered the sphere of influence of the Evil One. The occupier then tried to turn the beautifully functioning universe into a part of the realm of darkness. From this moment onward sin and lawlessness were able to infiltrate the universe. The word 'world' is the translation of 'kosmos', and means: An integrated and lawfully functioning whole. Into this ingeniously created 'kosmos' entered the Evil One with his powers and laws of destruction.
The result of this occupation was that man became surrounded by unseen powers of impurity. But only those who sinned, those who were deceived, infiltrated and forced to obey the powers of darkness, share in death. The New English Bible renders: "And thus death pervaded the whole human race, inasmuch as all men have sinned". In the same way Jesus Christ has found a way to defeat all the powers of sin with His life, that is, for all who obey Him.
So man is not automatically a sinner from the moment of his birth. After all, he is not automatically ill from the moment of his birth either. He has neither original guilt nor original sin. He is not by nature incapable of doing good and inclined to all evil. He does not have original stain. But his human spirit is no match for the temptation and oppression of the Evil One, especially when he is a child. He is incapable of resisting and dispel the devil, and by nature he has no discernment between good and evil. After Adam and Eve had sinned, God said: "Behold, the man has become as one of us, knowing good and evil".
We called the world an occupied territory. This of course means that man has not adopted the occupier's nature and being. Man will resist the influence of the Evil One by nature. There is much resistance in the occupied kosmos. Take for instance the inherent defense against the powers of sickness. The resistance can only become more effective by the forgiveness of sins and by the power and the weapons of the Holy Spirit. The way to death and destruction presumes a process and a development, and so does the way to glory. Gradually all resistance is broken down. That is why in chapter 3:12 Paul quoted the Psalms: 'All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong'. This means that their beginning was good.
God had said to Adam: "Dying you shall die", as Gen 2:17 can be rendered. Spiritual death is a matter of sins and trespasses which separate man from God, who is life. "And you He made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins", (Eph 2:1). When he fell, man did not become a devil, for neither in nor through the devil any form of life is manifested, and this does not apply to man. Even the Gentiles are said to do by nature what the law requires, (Rom 2:14). This means they are not entirely lawless. Every sin takes man further along the way of perdition, just as every sickness takes him closer to death.
Destruction is the end of the sinner, (Phil 2:19). In the judgment he has then become of similar nature to the devil, as Jesus said: "Depart from me, you cursed (you who are abandoned to the evil powers), into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels", (Matt 25:41).
In addition, we should recall Ephesians 2:3 which says that by nature we are children of wrath. This is not an indication of original stain, but of a natural development because the world is occupied by evil and all have sinned.
Genesis 6:5 says that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually. Imaginations of the thoughts presuppose consideration for and against. This verse teaches depravity but does not say how and when it came about. The same applies to Genesis 8:21, where the imagination of man's heart is said to be evil from his youth. This, however, does not include infancy, as a baby does not produce anything spiritual.
In Job 14:4 the question is asked whether a clean thing can be brought out of an unclean, in other words, whether it is possible for the child of an unclean person to remain clean himself. His parents are unable to consecrate him or to protect him against the powers surrounding him, as they themselves have been overpowered by them.
As for Psalm 51, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me", it is serious error to believe that this verse supports the doctrine of Original Sin.
Psalm 51 begins with a concrete situation. David composed this Psalm "when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba". After the strict requirements of the law, David and Bathsheba had earned themselves a death penalty when they committed adultery, (Lev 20:10). Instead of that, Nathan said to David: "You shall not die; ... the child that is born to you shall die", (2Sam 12:13,14). For a whole week the King David struggled for the salvation of his son. He fasted and spent the nights lying on the bare ground. It was during this tragic circumstance that David wrote Psalm 51. Therefore, we shouldn't detach the psalm from the struggle of David's soul for the salvation of his child.
David struggled with God in prayer about the question: Why does the little one have to die and not I? Of course he had also sinned against Uriah, but in the final instance his confession culminated in these words: "Against thee, thee only, have 1 sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight". In his struggle for the salvation of the child, David once again stood before God, although Nathan had assured him that his sin had been forgiven. But if God was "justified in his sentence and blameless in his judgment", that the sin had been forgiven, (Psalm 51:6), why did the boy still have to die? Did this happen only because he had been "brought forth and conceived in iniquity"? But then David exclaimed: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me", (Psalm 51:7).
If the child had to die because of his unlawful birth, so would have David when he was born. David was not an orthodox theologian whose ideas were determined by the doctrine of Original Sin. The Jewish mind knew nothing about the doctrine of Original Sin. All who read the words of David objectively without coloring them by the doctrine of Original Sin, will have to admit that David here confesses to the fact that his own birth was connected with iniquity. When someone says: "My birth was the result of my mother's sin", everyone would draw the same conclusion from this statement.
How little David was thinking along the lines of the hypothesis of Original Sin is shown again in the following outpouring: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow". Whiter than snow means: completely pure.
Of course, here's an equally important question: Why do people say that sin can be inherited, but not grace?
It is incomprehensible that one man's confession has been made into the main support of the doctrine of Original Sin. Especially, when we consider that the reason for his outpouring could not possibly have been the product of this way of thinking.
I personally find it rather bewildering to note that many people feel irritated when a connection is made between David's birth and the sin of his (unnamed) mother, while at the same instance they feel relieved about the teaching that all men are born and conceived in iniquity.
The Scriptures nowhere indicate the total depravity of man from the moment of his conception. They contain no suggestion of his being incapable of any good and inclined to every conceivable evil. But death spread to all men, because all men have sinned.
... I might as well offer something more to the explanation:
